World Battlefronts: Their Islands

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The finger of war pointed last week at the islands of the Mediterranean.

There are four Mediterranean islands which could be Maltas in reverse. If the Allies hope to follow the clearing of Tunisia with anything like immediate invasion of the European belly, some of the islands may have to be stormed before the battle of Tunisia ends. Invasion or no invasion, they must eventually be taken in order to win complete control in the western Mediterranean.

Lampedusa is eight square miles of rock, 80 miles east of Tunisia, 100 miles west of Malta. Most of it is rugged, but there is flat land at one end where an airfield has been built, and a small harbor on the south, reported to be a torpedo-boat base. The airfield was attacked from Malta last week.

Pantelleria lies smack in the middle of the Sicilian Channel. It is about half the size of Malta and has a simmering volcano at its center. Its airfield is reported to be connected by tunnel with a small underground hangar. The harbor can be used as a submarine base. The whole island is strongly fortified.

Sardinia, reinforced by the enemy by air from the continent, could seriously harass any Allied invasion of Italy. It is a big parallelogram of more than 9,000 square miles, nine-tenths rugged mountains, with so few harbors and such bad communications that its defense rests on isolated strong points. Cagliari is one of the Mediterranean's major naval bases, La Maddalena a minor one. There are several important airfields, such as Elmas and Monserrato, near these bases.

Sicily is really formidable. It has a naval base at Messina which can take vessels up to heavy cruisers, and submarine bases at Palermo, Augusta, Syracuse. It has been a Stuka base since 1941, with great dive-bomber fields at Catania on the east and Comiso on the southeast. It now has between 15 and 20 well dispersed air establishments, all good, all heavily fortified.